After this, we started to come to an island called Me-nau-zhe-taw-naun, in the Lake of the Woods, where we had concluded to plant corn, instead of our old fields at Dead River. On our way we stopped at a place to make sugar, then we went to visit the traders, leaving Ais-kaw-ba-wis with our women. It happened that the wife of Gish-kau-ko had left her kettle at the sugar camp, some distance from the place where they were to wait for our return. Some time after the men had gone, Ais-kaw-ba-wis, who lived by himself in a little lodge, pretending to be too holy to go into a common house, or to mingle with men in their ordinary pursuits, sent for the wife of Gish-kau-ko, and when she came to him, he said, “The Great Spirit is not pleased that you should abandon and lose your property. Go, therefore, and get the kettle that you have left at the sugar camp.” The woman obeyed, and he, soon after she had left the camp, took his gun, and under the pretence of going to hunt, went out in a different direction. But he had no sooner got out of sight of the lodges than he turned, and by circuitous route came upon the track of the wife of Gish-kau-ko. She, who had been before annoyed by his particular attentions, and surmised the real object he had in view in sending her for the kettle, kept a look out behind her, and when she saw him come running after her, she began to run also. Just at this time I was returning from the trading-house with the other Indians, when we descried this chase at a distance. It occasioned us much alarm when we saw first a woman, then a man, running with so much apparent earnestness. We thought nothing less than that the Sioux had come to the country, and were murdering our women and children. But when we came a little nearer, the pretended prophet gave over his pursuit of the woman, and came and sat down with us, to drink of the rum which the Indians had brought from the trading-house, and which they gave him very liberally. The woman was, however, after her arrival at home, compelled to give some account of the race, and she acknowledged that Ais-kaw-ba-wis had often sought similar opportunities to be alone with her, though such was her fear of him that she never dared make any disclosure, or offer any other resistance than an attempt to escape by flight. This discovery occasioned no disturbance, and seemed in no degree to diminish the influence of Ais-kaw-ba-wis. A large proportion of the rum we had brought from the trading-house was set apart for him, but when the principal man among us sent for him to come and receive it, he returned for answer, that he could not come. “Tell the chief,” said he, “that if he has any business with me, he can come to my lodge.” The liquor was accordingly carried to him, but its effect seemed to render his disposition somewhat more social and condescending, for about the middle of the night he came staggering into the lodge where I was without the least covering on any part of his body. To me his appearance was ludicrous in the extreme, and I did not refrain from a good deal of irreverent merriment on the occasion.
After this we came to the Lake of the Woods, where I hunted for about a month, then went back into the country I had left, all the Indians remaining behind to clear the ground where they intended planting corn at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung. I now began to experience the inconveniences resulting from having incurred the ill will of Ais-kaw-ba-wis. He it was who prejudiced the Indians so much against me, and particularly the relatives of my wife, that my situation at Me-nau-zhe-tau-naung was uncomfortable, and I was compelled to return to Red River.